Kuwait’s Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB) has formally mandated French bank BNP Paribas, US law firm Chadbourne & Parke and Germany’s Lahmeyer International to advise on the country’s first independent water and power project (IWPP).

The bureau’s selection of the consortium (MEED 16:3:10) was finalised when the state audit committee gave its approval in mid-March.

Kuwait tendered the advisory mandate for the $2bn Al-Zour IWPP in mid-2009, and at least 10 groups had submitted proposals by the 20 August deadline.

The competition was narrowed down to four bidding groups before two consortiums were informed that their bids were no longer being considered.

The two remaining bidding groups in competition were the BNP Paribas-led consortium and the UK’s HSBC with UK law firm Norton Rose and Germany’s Fichtner (MEED 13:1:10).

The planned IWPP will consist of a power plant with capacity of 1,500MW and a desalination plant capable of producing 100 million gallons a day of desalinated water.